


Future Echoes (Of What Cannot Be)

by galaxy_neozone



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Federal Agents, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Gun Violence, Hive Mind, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Minority Report - Freeform, Multi, Nobody Dies But A Lot Of People Get Hurt, PreCrime, Precognition, Precogs - Freeform, Spies & Secret Agents, johnmark, platonic renhyuckyang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxy_neozone/pseuds/galaxy_neozone
Summary: “Bring him in, Agent Lee.” The director’s voice is strained, but resolute. Not even a trace of hesitation as he stares Mark down. “You have clearance to use lethal force, if necessary. Just stop him, at any cost.”“But he hasn’t committed a crime, Sir.” Mark can’t believe what he’s hearing. This is Johnny they’re talking about. His mentor, and the finest agent PreCrime has. “He’s done nothing wrong.”“Not yet.” The man sighs, glancing down at the red ball clutched in Mark’s shaking hands. “But he will.”Or the Minority Report AU absolutely nobody asked for.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Liu Yang Yang, Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Future Echoes (Of What Cannot Be)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Welcome to this fun little hellscape my mind decided to dream up and then refused to let me leave alone. Minority Report is one of my all-time favourite movies and I've been wanting to write an AU for it for a while. I know I usually write MarkHyuck (speaking of, if you're here looking for a 'Ships' update, that's coming on Sunday!), but this couldn't have worked with anyone other than JohnMark, so here we are. Hopefully, you'll consider coming along on this little journey with me!
> 
> Warnings: Please read the tags! This one is very dark, very violent, and pretty graphic in its descriptions of said violence. No MCD, but people do die and MCs do get hurt. A lot. Be warned!
> 
> P.S. You don't need to have seen the movie or the TV show to enjoy this. I'm playing fast and loose with the rules of that universe anyway, so it might actually be more enjoyable if you haven't seen it...

**Monday, June 1st 2054**

**Seoul, South Korea**

“Morning, boss.”

Johnny nods a curt greeting to the guard at the sign-in station—Nakamoto Yuta, as his name badge displays proudly—and dumps a heavy stack of paperwork onto the desk next to the fingerprint scanner. Half the pile immediately tries to escape, plummeting off the polished marble countertop and towards the floor, but Johnny catches it just in time.

As happens every morning, Yuta doesn’t have to remind Johnny of the protocol. His thumb and index finger are pressing firmly into the pulsing, gelatinous pad on the desk between them before the guard has even had time to flip the retinal scanner in his direction, and then the glowing panel underneath is flashing neon green as he bends down to place his face within range of the secondary security system.

“Busy weekend?” Yuta taps his holo screen twice, before leaning back in his chair to get a better look at Johnny. The taller man doesn’t move a muscle until the retinal scanner has completed its sweep—not wanting to have to endure the entire process a second time—only straightening up when the tech chirps happily in confirmation.

“Retinal Scan: Positive,” the disembodied voice of the in-house AI announces loudly to the near-empty lobby. A second later, a three-dimensional rendering of Johnny’s eyeballs is floating in free space above the security desk—something Johnny doesn't think he’ll ever get used to, despite having worked for the federal government for over half a decade—and he grimaces. “Welcome back to PreCrime, Captain Suh. The time is eight-oh-five Korean Standard Time and you have three...” 

“Not bad, thanks,” he tells Yuta, trying to sound suitably casual as they both ignore the overly-friendly AI still effusively welcoming him back to work. The other man beams at him through the holo screens in response—making his face glow an unnatural green thanks to the nano overlays—and Johnny tries to smooth his features into something more pleasantly neutral.

It is a little odd, he thinks, as he retrieves his abandoned paperwork, to be making polite small talk while Yuta lazily pokes at the hologram of his eyeballs, causing them to spin slowly in a clockwise direction. Still, he makes sure to smile at the other man, as he does to every member of staff under his supervision. It always pays to maintain good friendships. One never knows when they might need to call in a favour, after all.

Not to mention, for what it’s worth, he actually likes Yuta.

“That looks like far too much paperwork to make for a fun Sunday, boss” Yuta points out, glancing at where several folders and files are trying to make an escape from Johnny’s arms again.

He shrugs, not able to argue with Yuta on that one, and shifts the heavy pile into a slightly more comfortable position against his chest. It makes his firearm—holstered under his armpit and several layers of fabric—dig unpleasantly into his ribs, but he ignores it. Now that he’s almost done with the front desk, his office is only a short walk and an elevator ride away.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” He flashes Yuta one more friendly smile, and then turns his attention to the firmly sealed security gate to the left of the desk. It’s the only way into or out of the main part of the building, the rest of the walls and the holo screens in front of Yuta reinforced with bullet-deflecting nano-tech, and the towering metal slab of a doorway gleams in stoic defiance of anyone mistakenly assuming that it represents an exploitable weakness. “Am I cleared to go down?”

“All clear, sir.” Yuta quickly taps a different spot on his display, the nanites rippling gently in the air as the entire screen turns red, and then Johnny hears the familiar groan of several dozen deadbolts sliding lazily from their housings. “Have a good day.”

“You too, man.” Johnny steps through the newly opened gap in the wall, the metal door swinging back into a gaping maw of inky blackness as he enters, and waves a hand over his shoulder that he hopes Yuta will catch. He usually stops to chat a bit longer with the guards on duty—Yuta, or Jungwoo in the evenings when he leaves for home—so he doesn't feel bad for rushing just this once, but today is an important day and he can’t afford to be distracted.

As the security system reactivates behind him, Johnny readjusts the papers in his arms, sighing happily when it relieves some of the pressure from his rapidly bruising rib cage, and then strides down the empty hallway in front of him. To either side, there are several dozen identical white doors. Doors leading to offices full of people, doors leading to bustling break rooms and packed stationery cupboards. Doors that hide employees who firmly believe that they know absolutely everything that goes on in the flagship Seoul branch of the PreCrime programme.

Johnny ignores them all. Instead, he walks with purpose towards the solitary service elevator situated at the far end of the hallway, perpetually sealed off to anyone without advanced security clearance. Of course, it’s not really a service elevator, Johnny knows that, as he places his palm squarely onto the concealed access panel set high into the wall, but, to the rest of the world, that’s how it appears. It pulses once, heating slightly beneath his skin, and then the doors slide open with a hiss.

It’s a quick trip after that, if he ignores the extra thirty seconds it takes to scoop up his pile of papers after an unfortunate battle with the elevator buttons, but then he’s dropping them off in his private office and bustling into the main control centre like a man who actually has his shit together.

Three of his team are already in place at their desks, even if Taeil looks like he might fall asleep into his coffee mug at any moment, and Johnny can’t help the indulgent, affectionate grin that graces his lips at the sight of the long-time colleague he’s proud to call a friend.

“Anything overnight I should be aware of?” he asks, obnoxiously loud so as to unequivocally announce his presence.

At the sound of Johnny’s voice, Taeil startles so violently that he almost falls off his chair, catching himself just before he goes sprawling. On the opposite side of the room, Jaehyun just blinks mutely at him like he’s speaking Klingon. He suspects that he’s not going to get much out of either of them this morning—the pair nearing the end of another long night shift—so he turns his attention quickly to the third man in the room.

Mark Lee is cemented in place by the large window panes that line the entirety of the far wall, his back to Johnny and the others. His steel capped toes are pressed firmly up against the kickboard, so Johnny just knows that his nose must be close enough to the glass to leave a mark, but that doesn't surprise him in the least.

As the youngest member of their team—the newest recruit to their intimate little basement operation—Mark is not as used to the inner workings of PreCrime yet as the rest of them. Where Johnny and the others can pretend not to see, have long since learned to detach themselves from the view, Mark is still painfully green.

“Mark?” Mark jumps, banging his knee painfully against the thick glass, and spins on his heel to face the control room. His cheeks flush pink, clearly embarrassed to have been caught staring, but Johnny just smiles. “Relax, man. I just asked if I missed anything important from the night shift.”

“Oh.” Mark hurries over to his desk and pulls a small, handheld holo screen out from amongst a messy pile of personal belongings. He holds it out to Johnny, who takes it and smoothly slides his fingers across the surface to activate the tech. A short list of new reports appears, which Johnny starts to scroll through as Mark continues.

“It was another quiet night,” he says quickly, nodding at the transparent display hovering a few inches above Johnny’s palm. “One armed robbery and a few domestic violence cases, for the most part. Hendery took one, since he was in the area anyway, and then Kun sent the rest to the blues down at the station just before he left at midnight.”

“Any issues picking up any of the perps?” It wouldn’t be uncommon—given their line of work—for some of their targets to attempt to evade arrest, but Mark shakes his head.

“Nope. The future thief was drunk in a bar downtown, so he’s sobering up at the precinct before we take him in for processing, but no major problems.”

Mark glances over his shoulder at the window as he speaks, and Johnny can tell he’s using every ounce of self-control left in his body to stop himself from going right back to staring, so he takes pity on the rookie. He moves smoothly towards the wall of glass, clapping a hand down on Mark’s shoulder as he moves, and the two of them reconvene overlooking the vast, dimly lit space beyond the control room.

“What’s on your mind, Agent Lee?” Johnny asks, his palm still pressing firmly into Mark’s shoulder blade. He feels the muscles in Mark’s back shifting and tightening a little beneath his fingers, so he squeezes gently. Mark relaxes a little under his touch, and Johnny turns his attention to the view beyond the glass. There are two lab techs climbing the steps that wind around the edge of the cylindrical-shaped cavern beyond, but he knows that’s not what holds either of their attention.

“Are you _sure_ they don’t feel pain?” Mark’s voice wavers a little as he speaks, taking another step forward so that his chest is practically brushing the glass. “One of them was twitching a lot last night and needed to be sedated again.”

Johnny follows him even closer to the edge, hand slipping idly off Mark’s shoulder as he moves, and they watch a third technician scurry busily around the rim of the large circular pool set deep into the base of the chamber. It’s several stories below them, far enough away that Johnny can’t possibly see the whites of her eyes, but he can feel the ill-ease oozing off of her even from where he stands.

“We went through all of this with the lab techs when we did your orientation. Remember?” Mark nods at his words, but Johnny gets the distinct impression that his mind is lost somewhere far below them. As they watch, the tech climbs carefully into the pool, fully clothed and armed with several devices that likely each cost more than Johnny’s apartment, and starts to wade slowly towards the centre. “They don’t feel much of anything. They were grown for this, remember, so they were never truly alive.”

The technician below them begins to attach wires to the prone body closest to her—an impossibly pale figure half-submerged in the thick photon milk bath that keeps their physical shell from expiring, long, paper-white hair drifting lazily around the tech’s waist as she moves—and Johnny has to look away. He knows that he speaks the truth, and that the three permanent fixtures of PreCrime’s most closely guarded secret aren’t human in the traditional sense of the word—but he still doesn’t like dwelling on it any more than the rest of his team.

The one currently being monitored is the oldest of the trio, although only by a few months. His—if you can really classify a perpetually comatose science experiment as any particular gender—facial features are soft, delicate and smooth in unending sleep. Johnny knows that from the many times he’s been forced to enter the room, usually to discuss logistics with the techs, even if he can’t make out the specific details from here.

Renjun, his name is. Johnny usually refers to him as ‘ _One_ ’, because it makes the disconnect required to complete his job far easier if he doesn't use their real names. It took the team a long time to train Mark into that same habit—and even now he sometimes forgets—but it’s better for all of them this way.

Especially when they thrash during a particularly violent premonition and the techs have to hold them down. Especially when their eyes open, blank and bleached like milk in the throws of reliving someone’s imminent demise. They’re just bodies, puppets for a purpose, Johnny reminds himself. Nothing more. They can’t be.

It never helps.

To Renjun’s left, suspended equally lifelessly beneath the surface of the pool, like the minute hand to Renjun’s hour hand, is Donghyuck—or ‘ _Two_ ’. He is slightly taller, throwing off the near-symmetry of the entire set up a little, but that irregularity is mirrored perfectly by the last of the trio, Yang Yang, who is positioned to Donghyuck’s left and Renjun’s right, spearing out feet-first from the centre of the pool. ‘ _Three_ ’, Johnny cautions himself, as Mark shifts uneasily beside him and draws his attention back towards the window. Always ‘ _Three_ ’.

“Do you ever wonder if what we’re doing here is wrong?” Mark whispers, pressing a shaky hand to the glass. It will inevitably leave stains, stains that Johnny will be sure to make Mark clean up later, but he doesn’t say anything. Mark’s not finished yet. He never is when it comes to the Precogs. “I mean, they’re not awake, or alive or whatever, but they’re still human. If people knew what we were really hiding down here—”

“And that is precisely why no one can ever know.”

Both of them jump at the sound of a third voice, one that bounces discordantly off the walls of the control room and fills every available iota of air with weight and gravitas. Johnny turns, a split second before Mark can react, and snaps to attention as he comes face to face with a familiar, unwelcome face.

“Director Kim.” He greets the man—his direct superior—by sweeping into a neat half bow, and then elbows Mark hard in the ribs when he fails to immediately follow suit. On either side of them, he catches rapid movement in his periphery, as Taeil and Jaehyun stand up from their desk chairs and allow their military training to kick in on instinct. Taeil is swaying a little, like he might pass out if he has to stand for too long, but Johnny is confident he will make it through what will hopefully be a short convention.

“Captain Suh.” The director salutes him briefly, as is customary from one ranking officer to another, and then lets his hand fall back to his side. Johnny doesn’t move from his rigid position and, to his immense pride, Mark doesn’t either. The imposing man points to Mark’s desk, the closest one to him, and then at the rolling chair tucked neatly underneath it. “May I?”

“Of course, sir.” The director takes a moment to make himself comfortable, draping his suit jacket carefully over the back of the chair while the rest of the room waits with almost bated breath, and then he’s finally waving away the formalities. Johnny watches as Taeil collapses bodily back into his seat, followed in quick succession by a weary-looking Jaehyun, and even Mark winces a little as he straightens up. “Uh. If you’ll allow it, Director Kim, the team from the night shift were about to leave. I had just dismissed them.”

Both men look surprised—which makes sense, since Johnny has done nothing of the sort—but they’re in no position to argue. In fact, Taeil looks like he’s about to cry with relief as he starts to collect his things, and Jaehyun flashes Johnny a grateful smile as he tucks his tech into the drawer of his desk and locks it with a fingerprint. The director doesn’t so much as glance in their direction, focused as he is on a slightly trembling Mark, so Johnny figures he doesn’t care either way.

“As I was saying, _Junior_ Agent Lee,” the director says, emphasising Mark’s rank in a way that leaves absolutely no room for argument, “this programme operates at the highest level of international discretion because we have no other choice. Please do not make me regret granting you security clearance.”

“I meant no offence, sir,” Mark insists, waving a hand in front of himself placatingly. “I understand the need for discretion. Of course I do,” he glances over at Johnny, who offers him a reassuring nod, “but that doesn’t stop me feeling bad for them sometimes.”

“Don’t.” The director’s voice might sound unnecessarily harsh and cold, as he levels Mark with his trademark steely gaze, but Johnny knows he means well. The man, mildly terrifying as he is, recruited everyone in this room—not to mention half the people in the building above. No one cares about the PreCrime programme more than he does. There’s a lot riding on the success of this programme, far more than Mark knows, especially today of all days, and it’s always Director Kim who stands the most to lose. “It is for the greater good.”

“Speaking of.” Johnny pulls the attention of both men back to him, before Mark has a chance to put his foot in his mouth again, and clears his throat. “I hadn’t found time yet this morning to inform Agent Lee about our impending visitor, sir. In fact, I wasn’t expecting you until lunchtime either, if I’m honest.”

“I thought I’d pop down early,” the director says with a nonchalant shrug. He looks unfazed, but Johnny can see the barest hint of tension seeping into the set of his shoulders. The man is not nearly as unbothered as he looks and, honestly, Johnny can’t blame him. “We cannot afford for anything to be out of place today. You know what is at stake if it is, Captain.”

“I do.” Mark shoots Johnny a confused look, so he elaborates. “They’re sending someone down from the Unified Justice Task Force today; an auditor of sorts. We’ve seen unprecedented successes here in Seoul so far, but they want to see the programme in action before they consider rolling it out worldwide.”

Unprecedented would be an understatement, Johnny thinks to himself, as realisation slowly dawns on Mark’s face. The crime rate in the hundred or so miles around Seoul has been reduced to zero percent in just two years, thanks to the work of their tiny team in the basement of the PreCrime building, and that’s a statistic that would be impossible for any world government to ignore.

Johnny and his team represent the tangible future of policing worldwide, and the visit today is the most significant step forward they’ve had in months. He is in complete agreement with Director Kim on this. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing _will_ go wrong. The system is infallible—the Precogs are infallible—so that just leaves him and Mark. He’s confident that his protege will perform well under pressure. Johnny has trained him for this. He’s ready.

They both are.

As if to highlight his point, the display embedded into Mark’s desk beeps loudly and a large holo screen unfurls above the director’s head in an instant. Five sets of eyes snap to the blinking red indicator in the centre of the transparent display, and their well-honed instincts kick in. Mark steps forward, fingers already drawn into a familiar sequence embedded through months of rigorous training, and, behind Johnny, Jaehyun is already dropping his coat to stride over towards the etching machine.

The huge network of tubes and gleaming tech towers over Jaehyun’s head, despite him not being much shorter than Johnny, and the faint green glow from the nanites casts Jaehyun in a sickly hue. He looks exhausted, and Johnny had hoped to have both him and Taeil out of the door before any new cases came in, but he’s still grateful for their presence while the director is watching. No one knows the etching tech better than Jaehyun.

“Want to do the honours, Cap?” Mark asks, distracting Johnny once again. Blinking, he drags his attention back to the situation currently unfolding in front of his eyes, and shakes his head dismissively.

“No. You take this one.” He glances meaningfully at the man still ensconced in Mark’s desk chair, watching everything expectantly, and he knows Mark understands when his eyes widen slightly. “Show us what you can do, partner.”

Mark grins, and Johnny knows he’s said just the right thing. They might not have worked together for very long, a mere six months compared to the years that he’s known the others, but he and Mark already make a stellar team. The man is an impossibly quick study, despite the few ethical impasses they’ve found themselves battling through, and he’s good at his job. A natural, in fact.

Mark takes a deep breath, lowering his head to glance at Director Kim one last time, and then presses three fingers from each hand into the nanites that make up the screen. Images and data populate the display immediately, cycling past his hands too fast for anyone to have a hope of reading, but Mark doesn’t focus on any of that. He’s already mentally searching through the database for access to the Precog protocols, which appear in front of his eyes at the same moment the thought crosses Johnny’s mind.

He’s not watching the pool but, from experience, Johnny knows that at least one of the Precogs will be active right now. It might be One, or perhaps Three. Rarely is it ever Two, given the uniqueness of Donghyuck’s role in the process, but it’s not unheard of. Whichever it is, right now the techs will be monitoring their vitals, to ensure that the neural transfer happens smoothly, but they’re all so practised at this point that it should only take seconds.

“First ball is coming through now,” Jaehyun calls, confirming Johnny’s suspicions. A nice simple case is exactly what they need to demonstrate Mark’s skills to the director. A robbery, or perhaps a mild case of road rage. If they’re lucky, they’ll have a few similarly uncomplicated instances this afternoon with the auditor too, and it can be all wrapped up and rubber-stamped before Kun and Ten show up for their night shift at dusk.

“Call it as you see it,” Mark tells Jaehyun dismissively, almost one hundred percent focused on the images rapidly flickering past one another on the screen in front of him. He won’t look away now, not until it’s over, but Jaehyun knows what to do. A smooth wooden ball, freshly etched and propelled out from the inner workings of the machine, is slowly rolling down the tube towards Agent Jeong, who reaches out to grab it just as it drops from the perfectly cylindrical delivery shaft.

“Yoo Jisoo.” Jaehyun holds up the object in his hands to Taeil, who materialises at his elbow as if he were summoned telepathically. He scans the ball with a handheld screen, converting the name etched into the surface to digital and then flicking it effortlessly across to Mark’s larger display. “Next one is coming down now. It looks like it’s going to be blue.”

Blue means petty crime, Johnny knows from experience. Mark nods, looking entirely unbothered by Jaehyun’s words, so he’s certain the rookie has already registered the same thought. He still doesn’t look away from the screen, watching the images carefully as Taeil transfers the second etching to him.

Johnny can’t quite make out the name from this angle, but he doesn’t move to get a closer look. He doesn’t need to. Mark has this fully under control, not that he would expect anything less from the man currently at the helm. Even the director looks impressed, which makes Johnny’s chest feel like it’s going to burst with pride, and, besides, he’s almost done now anyway.

It only takes a couple of minutes. Mark finishes processing the data on screen, sending an alert to the local police to bring in the perp for sentencing, and then the screen is disappearing back into Mark’s desk like it never existed. Mark shakes out the tension in his biceps, muscles strained from holding his arms out at such an unnatural angle for the last fifteen minutes, and then the room falls silent, save for Jaehyun shuffling back across the floor to retrieve his abandoned coat.

“See you tomorrow, boss,” Taeil says softly, pointedly ignoring the director in Mark’s seat as he and Jaehyun head for the exit. Johnny nods, muttering something about getting home safely, and then they’re gone, leaving just the three of them in the control room.

“I have to say,” Director Kim says finally, after letting the silence lie for a few seconds too long. Mark pales under his gaze, but mercifully doesn’t wilt from the intensity this time. There are a few more agonising seconds of silence, and then a small smirk curls up the corner of the man’s lips. “That was an impressive display, Mark.”

Johnny almost lets out a grunt of surprise at his use of Mark’s first name—almost unheard of for the man in charge of the PreCrime initiative—but manages to hold himself back at the last moment. Mark seems equally stunned, but he recovers quickly, bowing his head respectfully in Director Kim’s direction.

“Thank you, sir.”

“No need to thank me, kid.” The director straightens in the borrowed chair, the metal structure squeaking a little under his weight, and then gets leisurely to his feet. Johnny doesn’t bother bowing this time, knowing that it won’t be expected, but Mark does. It’s oddly endearing, to watch his partner’s cheeks burn red from praise even as he kowtows to the militant demands of his position, and Johnny hides a chuckle behind his fingers. “May I use your office until our guest arrives, Captain Suh?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Anything to get the man out of the room, before Mark loses feeling in his spinal column, Johnny thinks, as the director turns on his heel and leaves the room. The door closes behind him a moment later, the soft click of the locking mechanism echoing in the silence, and then Mark is letting out an almighty groan of relief.

“Shit!” Mark intones, watching the door carefully for any other unwelcome visitors for a moment, before turning to look at Johnny. “I thought I was dead in the water for a hot second there. He almost fired me on the spot when he first came in.”

“He didn’t.” Johnny steps forward, pulling Mark into a loose embrace. It’s just the two of them in here now, so he isn’t worried about anyone witnessing the way that the younger man melts into his chest with a sigh. “Every single one of us has been through the same thing at some point. It’s natural to have doubts when you first start out. Director Kim wouldn’t fire you just for having a heart.”

“If you say so.” Mark’s voice is muffled as he presses his face into Johnny’s shirt and lets out another shaky breath. Johnny pulls him in tighter, until there’s no space at all between their bodies, and bends his head to press a soft kiss into Mark’s hair. It’s incredibly rare that they get a chance to be this openly affectionate at work, given that relationships within their team are generally frowned upon by the powers-that-be, but Johnny figures Mark needs something more than just words today.

“I _do_ say so.” Eventually, Johnny leans away a little, arms loosening their vice-like grip so that he can look the shorter man in the eyes. “You good?”

“I am now.” Mark steps back a few paces, and Johnny lets him go. They’ve tested fate enough for one day, and Johnny doesn’t want to push things too far. This thing they have is still very new—not to mention tentative on Mark’s part—so he’s used to giving the other man space. They work together and see each other every single day, without fail. They have plenty of time. He can afford to take things as slowly as Mark needs him to. “You could have warned me that we had visitors in today though.”

“Hey!” Johnny holds his hands up in a simultaneous display of defensiveness and apology. “I was going to. In my defence, I didn't expect him to arrive at,” Johnny glances down at the display on his wrist, “half eight in the morning.”

“Fair enough.” Mark chuckles, reclaiming the chair that the director has just vacated. He uses his feet to drag it on its wheels over to his desk and then pulls his handheld holo screen towards him across the tabletop. “Next time though, a five-minute warning would be nice.”

“You and me both, man.” Johnny echoes Mark’s carefree laugh. “You and me both.”

\--

The next few hours pass without incident, the Precogs staying mercifully silent for the time being, so Johnny uses it as an opportunity to catch up on paperwork. Despite the formidable pile he took home over the weekend, there’s always plenty more to do, and he and Mark find themselves swamped until midday.

Several times, one or the other of them laments the fact that they even have to do physical paperwork at all, given that almost everything of worth in society is stored digitally nowadays, but that doesn’t change the fact that Director Kim insists on hand-written backups of every file, every case and every incident report. It won’t do itself, Johnny reminds Mark for the third time, as the clock ticks over to twelve, and then they’re hurrying to tidy up the control room ready for their next guest.

The auditor from the Unified Task Force turns out to be a slender, severe woman by the name of General Kwon. Johnny is pretty sure he’s seen her somewhere before, and she greets him in a similar fashion, but he’s still careful to follow protocol to the letter. Mark does the same, and even the director bows respectfully as she steps into the room, flanked by two burly security personnel.

“At ease,” she insists finally, and the room seems to let out a pregnant breath as Johnny allows his rigid stance to ease just a little. He doesn’t move from his position in front of the windows, other than to tuck his hands neatly behind his back, and he can feel the heat from Mark’s hip through his clothes as the rookie half hides behind his partner. “This is not an inquisition.”

“Of course not—” the director begins, but General Kwon cuts him off with a wave of her hand. She delicately brushes an invisible hair off her forehead, barely grazing an immaculate chignon that seems to defy gravity, and then rests her gaze squarely on Johnny’s face.

“I want to see this programme in action, Captain Suh,” she says, curtly but not altogether unkindly. It feels more efficient than rude, which is further backed by her next words. “I do not expect that I will need to be here much longer than I am welcome. I have heard nothing but excellent reports about your field teams, and about those who work directly under your command here at PreCrime. I certainly do not expect today to be any different.”

“Thank you, General,” Johnny tells her earnestly, because he’s not sure what else to say. He doesn’t know what she’s heard, or from whom, but she’s not wrong. His team is the best of the best, from the central operations core right through to Yuta and Jungwoo manning the front desk, and he has no reason to believe that today will be any different. They have a reputation for a reason. They are damn good at their jobs.

“You’re welcome, Captain.” The words are accompanied by a very slight bob of her head, but Johnny accepts it for what it is. A sign of respect and appreciation, one that this woman probably doesn’t extend very often. “Now, if I have been briefed correctly, I am to believe that it could take some time for a crime to actually be reported.”

“Pre-crime,” Mark offers, seeming to surprise himself as he speaks up. He takes another tiny step backwards, so that even more of his body is shielded by Johnny’s considerable height, but the general doesn’t appear annoyed by the interruption. Instead, she simply looks curious.

“Care to explain, Agent…?”

“Lee,” Mark supplies.

“Agent Lee. Would you like to elaborate?”

“Oh…”

“Perhaps,” Johnny interjects, to save Mark from floundering any longer than he needs to. “You could talk General Kwon through the procedure we follow whenever the Precogs get a vision, Mark. That way, she can get a feel for how it works before we deal with a live incident later.”

“That sounds perfect, Captain,” the general agrees. She doesn’t smile—and something tells Johnny she won’t—but the look she gives Mark is distinctly softer than anything she’s conveyed up to this point. Behind her, Director Kim looks mildly concerned by this new turn of events, but Johnny is confident that Mark can handle it.

“Uh, sure.” Mark steps out from Johnny’s shadow for the first time since the new arrivals entered the room, and walks slowly across to his desk in the middle of the room. General Kwon follows behind him as Johnny and Director Kim watch on, while her silent, not-at-all creepy entourage frame the door and try unsuccessfully to blend in with the metalwork.

“This is where I monitor the whole timeline from,” Mark begins, flicking his fingers upwards to manually call forth the nano display. General Kwon doesn't say anything, evidently content to watch and listen, so he continues. “When one of our three Precogs has a premonition of a future event—a pre-crime, if you will—the neural networks embedded within their prefrontal cortex will detect any slight fluctuations in their brain signals and send an alert here.

“It can be accessed from any of the stations, depending on who is on duty,” he indicates the other desks littered throughout the control centre, “but at the moment, mine is set to primary.” Mark taps the holo screen in one corner, pulling up a database of recent pre-crimes. Selecting one, he pulls it into the centre so that the general can see it.

“This is a report I processed last week,” he tells her, moving his fingers slowly so that the images start to cycle at a manageable pace. Johnny looks away as he recognises the case, the brutal stabbing of a man in a park in Gangnam, but the general seems enthralled as it plays out on screen. “Because it was a particularly violent one, all three of the Precogs were...active.” Mark flinches at his use of the word, but continues. “The vision we got was especially vivid as a result, meaning we got really clear facial confirmation of the perp.”

Johnny tunes Mark out as he turns to stare out of the window behind him. He knows Mark will be detailing the process by which they report, track and apprehend the perps before they have a chance to actually commit the crime, but his attention is drawn out and down instead. At the edge of the pool, a lone technician is monitoring something on a screen in his hands, and the Precogs are still. Silent. Dormant.

It’s been a quiet morning, Johnny thinks to himself, as he watches the tech enter data into his device and then move towards the pool. The Precogs are never left unattended, in case there’s a particularly volatile incident that they need to be sedated for or restrained through, but all is perfectly peaceful today. For some reason, it feels a lot like the calm before the storm, but Johnny brushes that thought off before he can dwell on it.

“This is the etching machine.” Mark is on the move, so Johnny turns to watch as he guides the general over towards the wall of tubes and complex tech behind Jaehyun’s desk. It’s a staggering feat of engineering, one that Johnny can’t pretend to fully understand even after several long years in its company, so he’s curious how Mark is going to attempt to explain it all to her.

“When a vision is triggered, regardless of which Precog reacts to it, Renj—” Mark hesitates, eyes flicking across to Johnny for a moment, before he corrects himself. “The oldest Precog, the one we’ve designated ‘ _One_ ’, gives us the names. The twins, which we’ve designated ‘ _Two_ ’ and ‘ _Three_ ’, have different roles—although the three of them operate as a collective—but ‘ _One_ ’ always provides us with two names.”

“Two?” Johnny thinks it’s the first time the general has spoken since Mark started his tour, and it surprises both of them.

“Two,” Mark agrees. “The first is the name of the victim. It’s etched onto a plain wooden ball, and ejected from the machine via this tube.” He taps one of the slim pipes with his index finger, as the pair admire the maze of glass and chrome. “Each ball is unique, from the grain to the way that the characters are etched, which makes them impossible to fake.”

“And every one is retained and stored for future verification,” Johnny adds, when it becomes clear Mark isn’t going to. “We’ve never needed to, since the Precogs are one hundred percent accurate in their predictions, but it’s protocol.”

“I’ve seen the physical archive,” General Kwon says with a nod. “It’s very impressive, and being here to see the source is helping me to understand the need for it.” She pauses for a moment, deep in thought, and then turns back to Mark. “Please continue, Agent Lee.”

“Right.” Mark hesitates, collecting himself, and then points at the etching machine again. “As I was saying, the name of the victim is etched into a plain wooden ball. The colour of the other ball depends on the severity of the crime. Green is for victimless crimes—those are etched with a case number instead of a name—blue for petty crime, and grey for violence or use of an offensive weapon.”

“What about red?” the general asks, pointing to a bright scarlet ball on a small display stand on Kun’s desk. Mark reaches over to retrieve it, before dropping it lightly into her hand. It’s blank, a prototype that the team have kept around since the start of the programme for sentimental purposes, but Johnny knows that’s not the important thing right now.

“Red is for murder. Premeditated murder.” General Kwon’s eyes widen a fraction, staring down at the small, unassuming object in her hands, and then she holds it out to Mark. He accepts the polished, perfectly symmetrical sphere back from her, and carefully places it back into the stand. “The second ball has the name of the—”

Before Mark can finish his sentence, there’s a loud beep from the direction of his desk. He falls silent, head snapping over to it so fast then Johnny might be concerned about whiplash in other circumstances, and then he’s springing into action.

“Captain,” Mark calls out. “This one is all yours. I’ll call the names from here.”

“Affirmative.” Johnny knows he needs to go to where the screen is, already activated and poised from when Mark was demonstrating earlier, but he can’t help but cast one final look down through the window behind him before he moves.

Below, Renjun is already thrashing wildly, the female tech crowded over him to try to prevent him from damaging himself or tearing at any of the dozens of wires or inputs that are attached to him. As Johnny watches, Yang Yang starts to seize violently beside him, limbs flailing in a way that the veteran agent can’t recall seeing in a very long time. There are another three technicians already running towards the pool, alert and ready for anything, so he’s not concerned, but it’s not a good sign.

“It looks like it’s going to be a bad one,” he mutters, as much to himself as to anyone else. He starts to turn, heading for Mark’s desk, when another rapid movement catches his eye. It’s Donghyuck, and he’s… he looks like he’s screaming. Johnny can’t see clearly from this height, but the Precog’s eyes are open and he’s reaching up towards something above him. Something, or someone.

Johnny shivers. He knows that Donghyuck— _Two_ —can’t possibly be responding to any of the external stimuli around him, because he’s not alive enough to really be aware, but he gets the uncanny impression that the Precog is looking straight at him. Straight through him. Straight inside him.

“Cap?”

“Sorry.” The next second, Johnny is across the room, plunging his hands into the nanites that make up the display he needs to access, and then crystal clear images are suddenly whirling around inside his head. He usually needs to focus to access a vision as the Precogs witness it, to guide his mind to tune into the correct brain patterns, but this time it’s as effortless as freefalling.

_He’s in an abandoned back alley. There’s a street light above his head, but the bulb is missing from the housing, casting the street around him into shadow. Where the road opens out at the far end, he can see a bustling street full of people, cars and twinkling lights, but here there is nothing more than a yawning void of life._

_He’s in downtown Hongdae. He knows this because it’s less than a mile from his apartment. If he squints, he might even be able to see his favourite takeout place just beyond the fast-moving traffic in the main highway. It’s busy out, despite the darkness of the sky and the obviously late hour, but this particular spot is ominously empty._

Johnny’s fingers twitch the slightest amount, carefully fast-forwarding through the moments of inactivity. He’s not here to sightsee. He’s looking for something—or someone—very specific. He’s looking for...wait, there.

_A petite figure in a red dress comes hurtling around the corner towards him. It looks to be a woman in her mid-twenties, if he had to guess, and she’s barefoot and shaking. There’s no sound to the premonition—there never is—but her mouth is open and she’s silently screaming for help that he suspects will never come._

_Half a beat later, another figure rounds the bend in close pursuit. This one is much taller, roughly Johnny’s height. They have a black balaclava covering most of their face, and it’s too dark to make out the colour of their eyes, but the gun in their right hand gleams silver as if to spite the surrounding darkness._

Firearm. Smith and Wesson. Model 10. 38 Cal. Revolver.

He recognises it because it’s the exact same make and model he carries. In fact, it’s the exact same gun that every ganglord, drug runner and wannabe thief in Seoul used to own, back before PreCrime eradicated them all, which is sure to make positive identification of a weapon difficult.

Still, he makes a mental note, which transfers itself to the holo screen the instant it leaves his mind. Details like that are good practice to have on file, even if they’re ultimately inconsequential. Once the name comes down the chute, it won’t matter. The perp, whoever they are, has already been deemed guilty without ever having fired their gun.

_The two figures are passing right by him now, so he slows the footage down to get a better look. The taller one is masked in shadows, so he can’t see much more than the mask, but the woman’s face is in stark relief against the lights from the busy street beyond as she passes._

Johnny recognises her.

“Lim Yoon-ah.” He hears Mark call out the name, but he needn’t have bothered. Johnny already knows.

“She’s the journalist who interviewed me about the programme the other week,” he offers absently, still slowly scrubbing through the scene. On the opposite side of the screen, he can see the director’s eyes light up with recognition, but he ignores him for the time being. “She had a curated tour of the building, everything but the basement. She wasn't here for more than an hour, but I remember the face.”

He knows that the director, General Kwon and Mark can all see what he is seeing, can see her face in haunting technicolour, so he doesn’t bother elaborating further. The name pops up on his display a few seconds later, barely a blip on his radar as he refocuses on the action taking place in the premonition from the alleyway. He cycles through with his thumb, this time looking for the exact moment the crime is committed...

_The taller figure is dressed all in black, from the tight-fitting suit pants right down to the polished black loafers that splash into the dirt with every step. A black hoodie is pulled high over their head, hiding their hair, and the outer jacket they wear has a large tear in the left pocket, like there was a violent struggle at some point in the past._

_They reach out, snagging the woman’s arm, and tug her back into them. She tries to resist, to pull away, but they’re just too strong for her to overcome. They both come to an abrupt stop, just steps away from Johnny’s vantage point, and then she is being forcefully twisted around as though to give him a better view._

_“No!” He can’t hear her, of course, but the repeated refrain tumbling from her lips is unmistakable. “Please, no!” Her eyes are blown wide with fear, and her whole body trembles as she continues to fight to escape her assailant’s grasp. She’s fighting with everything in her, and Johnny wants to scream at her to keep on fighting, but then the butt of the gun is being pressed to the centre of her forehead and she goes unnaturally still._

“The second ball is taking a long time to release.” Mark sounds confused, and Johnny wants to reassure him that General Kwon is not going to take marks off his performance because the technology needs a few more seconds. Besides, he’s still not yet witnessed the crime, although he’s pretty sure he knows what the colour will be.

_Red. It will be red, Johnny thinks, as the figure in black forces her head back with the business end of the firearm. Whoever this is, they’re a trained professional, he notes, as he watches the clinical way they manhandle the helpless journalist flat against the wall of the alley to minimise blood splatter. It’s ruthless and abundantly cruel, but it’s certainly efficient. In a strange way, he almost admires that._

“It’s coming,” Mark says triumphantly.

_Johnny can distantly hear the soft click of the etching machine releasing the ball into the tube, but that is drowned out by the deafening thud of his own heart in his chest as the figure in black compresses the trigger and a single bullet passes cleanly between Lim Yoonah’s eyes. A trickle of blood, viscous and sickening, bisects her left brow and starts to swallow up the thin film over her iris._

“Fuck.”

_The body falls—in slow motion thanks to the vice-like grip Johnny has on the replay node—hitting the ground with a silence so loud that it’s impossible to ignore. The masked perp stares down at her for a moment, as though admiring their handiwork, and then tucks the gun almost carelessly into their half-destroyed jacket pocket._

_They turn to walk away and, as they do, they flick their jacket out as though they’re mocking Johnny. The matte fabric ripples out in a fan around their hips, briefly highlighting a large grey emblem printed on the back. It’s a dove holding an olive branch, as it soars over the skyline of the city he’s standing in. It’s an emblem he knows all too well._

“Is that…?” Director Kim’s voice echoes cacophonously through the control room, but Johnny isn’t listening. Instead, his gaze is inextricably locked onto the three block characters on the perp’s jacket, a single name writ large above the PreCrime sigil like a noose around his neck.

_서영호_

_Seo Youngho_

“Got it!” Johnny wrenches his mind free from the nanotech, fingers pinching the video on screen as small as it will go, as though that will somehow be enough to hide it from the others. Mark is turning, a smile on his face and a small crimson ball clutched in his closed fist. He hasn’t looked at it yet, he can’t have, but Johnny already wants nothing more than to spare him the pain.

“Put your hands on your head and get down on the ground.” Director Kim has his weapon drawn and trained on Johnny’s chest before he can take another breath. A moment later, Johnny has his own cocked at point-blank range, a reflex response to the threat in front of him. The director doesn’t even flinch, rounding the desk until there’s nothing between them but empty space. “I won’t ask again, John.”

“Johnny?” Mark sounds scared now. Johnny turns his head to the side just a little, just enough to take in the growing panic on his partner’s face. Mark’s gun is half in and half out of its holster, his fingers flexing around the grip like he can’t decide who to aim for. “I don’t—”

“Don’t move a muscle, Agent Lee,” the director warns, not taking his eyes off Johnny’s trigger finger as he speaks. “That’s an order.” Mark does as he’s told, even as the general takes a tentative step towards the two of them, arms outstretched as if she’s about to break up a playground fight. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stay where you are.”

“What’s going on?” Mark’s eyes are on the shiny wood between his fingers now, the smooth surface sliding easily across his skin as he slowly turns it over in his grip. His eyes widen in horror. “Johnny, what is—why does this say your name?”

Johnny can’t answer him, because he doesn’t know-how. Can’t tell him the truth, because he doesn’t know it. All he knows is what he’s just seen with his own eyes, the images that have been fed into his brain by the three infallible Precogs kept hidden from the world in the basement of this building.

“This will all be a lot easier if you come quietly, son.” Director Kim almost sounds apologetic as he addresses Johnny this time, like he’s saying goodbye to an old friend, and Johnny supposes that’s exactly what it’s like. He knows what happens to the perps they round up—where they go, and what becomes of them once they’re gone. It’s very much like saying goodbye.

The man takes a step towards Johnny and instinct kicks in. He aims and fires, a bullet snapping into the floor at the director’s feet. It’s an inch from his boot, and it almost looks like Johnny missed, but no one in this room is dumb enough to believe that. It’s exactly what it looks like. A warning shot.

“Don’t do this, John.”

“You’re not leaving me a choice.” And he isn’t. The evidence against Johnny is insurmountable. The jacket worn by the perp is the same one currently hanging on the back of the door in his office. The gun used in the murder is the one in his hand right now. The ball in Mark's hand holds his name. He even has history with the victim—limited though it is.

“The Precogs are never wrong.” This time, it’s General Kwon who speaks. She’s not asking a question, but both Johnny and the director nod in agreement. The Precogs are never, ever wrong. He knows that. The director knows that. They all know that, and it means only one thing.

At some point in the very near future, for reasons Johnny cannot possibly conceive of yet, he is going to brutally execute an innocent woman in cold blood. The thought hasn’t even crossed his mind yet, his path not yet solid before him, but the Precogs have seen it. Seen him. Seen the terrible truth, leaving him no choice—save one.

“If you run, they’ll find you.” Director Kim must see the moment Johnny makes his decision, because he takes another step closer. Another warning shot, this time just a hairsbreadth from the man’s toes, ricochets off into the side of Jaehyun’s desk.

“I know.”

“There’s no way out of this, John.”

Johnny sighs heavily. “I know.”

He moves so fast that his vision almost blurs. One moment, he’s facing the business end of a service revolver. The next, Director Kim is on the ground, nursing a vicious gash in his temple. Johnny ducks on instinct as one of the general’s security guards finally opens fire, praying that Mark has the wherewithal to get her out of harm’s way, and then he’s detaching the two extraneous bodies with practised ease.

A quick double-tap to the kneecap, and the taller one is sprawled out on his stomach. Next, a well-timed punch, and the other hulking guard is down for the count. He’s already sprinting for the door, escape just an elevator shaft away, when an unexpected bullet whistles past his cheek.

It’s so close to his face that it can’t have been an accident, so he whirls around mid-stride to see Mark holding his gun out in front of his chest, hands trembling so much that it’s a miracle he managed to even aim. The man’s eyes are glistening, the horror of what he almost did reflected back at Johnny like a spectre, and then the gun is clattering to the ground at his feet.

“I didn’t—” Mark’s voice is barely a whisper, but Johnny understands him perfectly. He didn't mean it. He didn't want to. Johnny understands, and it’s okay. He’d be disappointed if Mark had just allowed him to leave. He’s grateful that Mark doesn’t have it in him to end his life, grateful that the man he loves won’t have that blight on his conscience for the rest of his life, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.

“It’s okay,” he tells Mark, as his fingers land on the door panel and it beeps, recognising his prints. It slides open behind him, but his gaze is still locked with Mark’s. There’s so much he wants to say right now, so many things he wants Mark to know. He kept telling himself that they had time, always more time, and now his time has finally run out.

“I—” Mark hesitates, but Johnny knows what he’s about to say. The same three words float through his mind like a blessing and a curse—those three short pen strokes in both of Johnny’s heart languages that mean far more than mere words can ever express—and yet he knows that now is not the right time.

No one knows about them. No one can ever know. Mark is still completely innocent in all of this, an apparent victim of a partner gone rogue, and Johnny will take their secret to the grave to protect him from blame. He will take his confession to the grave if he must, to give Mark the chance to be free—free from him. Free from loving a murderer.

“I know,” is all Johnny says. He glances once more at Director Kim, who is trying to scramble towards the gun on the floor at his feet, and then back at Mark. “I’m sorry.”

\--

The elevator ride back up to the surface is the longest sixty seconds of Johnny’s life. An afterimage of Mark’s face lingers even as he closes his eyes, overlaid with a constant replay of the moment in which he snuffs out the life of a young woman in a future that he is blindly stumbling towards. He forces his eyes open, but the muzzle flash still blinds him over and over again as the strip lights above his head flicker manically.

He can’t even begin to process the situation before he’s sprinting down the corridor towards the security door. He knows he has to move fast, to make it through the gate before anyone below has time to raise the alarm, or he’ll be trapped. Trapped, he faces a fate worse than death, so he picks up the pace, shoes pounding the linoleum so forcefully with each step that he can feel it in his bones.

“Yuta!” He slams his palm down onto the release panel, praying to any deities that are listening that the man is at his desk. It’s lunchtime, so there’s a very real possibility that he’s taking a break, but that also means game over. He stabs the comms button repeatedly, begging it to connect. “Agent Nakamoto, let me out. Now!”

There’s a moment when he starts to lose hope, starts to mentally prepare himself for the end, but then Yuta’s voice crackles to life through the intercom. “Hang tight, Captain. I’ve got you.”

The deadbolts groan, moving far too slowly for Johnny’s liking, but then the huge metal security door is swinging in on itself. It takes a few more agonising seconds for the gap to be wide enough to squeeze through, but then Johnny is stumbling into the lobby like an agoraphobic man desperate to see the sun.

“You okay, boss?” Yuta is standing up from his chair, peering curiously at him through the holo screen between them. Johnny nods, hoping that Yuta won’t see his growing panic, and forces himself to start walking normally towards the exit doors on the far side of the mezzanine. He’s halfway there, can practically taste the fresh air, when the lights overhead start to flash red and an alarm sounds from somewhere behind him. “What’s—?”

Johnny can hear Yuta’s confusion, and begins to walk faster. He doesn't want to further arouse the man’s suspicions, because a single tap of a button from behind that desk can lock every door in the building down in a heartbeat, including the ones directly in front of him, but he also knows that he’s almost out of time. Yuta is not stupid, none of his team are, and any second now it’s going to click that something is badly wrong.

“Wait. Stop.”

To Johnny’s surprise, the next sound he hears is not the telltale thud of metal bars descending from the ceiling to block his escape. Instead, there’s the soft beep of a manual override, and then shoes impacting the floor behind him. He turns, praying that his instincts are wrong, but they aren't. Nano screen deactivated, Yuta has mounted the security desk, breaking at least thirty protocols in the process, and is now staring him down like he’s about to chase him out of the building.

“You really don’t want to do this, man.” Johnny keeps his voice low and even, as Yuta advances on him. The other man’s fingers twitch as they move towards his belt, and towards the gun holstered there, but Johnny can’t bring himself to think about what that means. He’s already faced down Mark and the director and won, but this is Nakamoto Yuta. This is different.

If Yuta takes a shot at him, that bullet is not going to miss.

“I saw the alert,” Yuta says slowly, taking another step. His hand is dangerously close to his firearm now, but he still hasn’t made a move. With his gun already in his hand, Johnny has the upper hand for now. The last thing he wants is to hurt anyone else—despite all the evidence currently stacked against him downstairs—but he’s not going to risk letting Yuta flip the script on him. “The second you step out of that door, you’re ‘ _kill on sight_ ’.”

“I know.” Those two little words seem to be a running trend for Johnny today, but he can’t find a more eloquent alternative. For all he claims to know, he has no idea what’s going on, but, if saying it over and over again tricks his brain into believing it, he’ll take what he can get. “I didn't do anything. I won’t!”

“I wish I could believe you, my friend.”

“We’ve known each other for four years, Yuta.” Johnny knows that sentimentality is unlikely to work on the notoriously implacable guard, but it gives him the opportunity to take another backwards step towards freedom while Yuta is distracted. “Four years. You know me.”

“I thought I did.” There’s a heavy, steadfast reluctance in Yuta’s eyes as he slowly closes the distance between them across the empty lobby. He doesn’t want to be in this situation any more than Johnny does, and the taller man finds himself wishing once again that Yuta hadn’t rashly overridden the security systems. If Johnny leaves Yuta unscathed now, it would reflect badly on his friend—maybe even implicating him as an unwitting accomplice—and so he’s left with little choice.

“You do,” he tells Yuta firmly, fingers curving more tightly around the grip of his gun. He knows he will have only a few tenths of a second on Yuta, once he makes his move, so he has to time it perfectly. No room for error, or hesitation. “You do know me. I promise you, I’ll fix this.”

“You _can’t_ fix this.” Yuta glances down at the ground, a decision that he will probably regret for the rest of his life if Johnny really can’t find a way out of this mess, and he pounces on the younger man’s mistake. “The Precogs are never—”

The bullet is out of the chamber before Yuta can utter the last word, and then the thick metal slug is ripping through muscle and bone like a miniature wrecking ball. It impacts collarbone and trapezoid, deliberately missing all of his vital arteries by design, and so very little blood sprays from the gaping crater of flesh and cotton left behind as the bullet exits neatly through his back.

It’s clean, so clean that Johnny almost wonders if he missed, but then Yuta is pitching backwards. His tailbone slams down hard onto the tiled floor at his back, the impact jarring his brutalized shoulder even more, and Yuta lets out an agonised roar of pain. Merciful as he was, Johnny thinks it probably still hurts like a mother.

“I—I’m sorry, my friend. Truly, I am.”

Yuta didn't even see it coming, Johnny muses, as he spills out of the PreCrime building onto the crowded street, gun already back beneath his armpit and a face mask pulled up over his mouth and nose. He did what was necessary, nothing more, but he knows that the look of betrayal on Yuta’s face will forever haunt him. He just hopes that, one day, his friend will find a way to forgive him—one that doesn’t end with Johnny in a bodybag.

Ducking his head down, Johnny weaves around a small crowd of people crossing the street and into a less well-traversed side street. Cameras, billboards and scanners still blink at him from a million different angles, and he knows he’s going to need something far better than a flimsy paper mask to evade them for long—long enough to figure out how to clear his name—but first he needs to get as far away from Seoul as possible.

First, he needs to run.

\--

“I’m afraid he’s likely long gone by now, sir.”

Director Kim slams his fist down onto Mark’s desk, causing more than one of the gathered agents to startle. There’s no anger in his gesture, despite the futility of the last two hours, and Mark can see the way the skin at the corner of his eyes pinches together like he’s trying to keep from breaking down. This hurts for him, almost as much as it hurts for Mark.

“We already have every available agent out in the field looking for him.” Ten is the one currently speaking, his face projected into the room via the holo screen hovering over Mark’s desk. He’s not the only one not physically present, Jaehyun and Taeil having been roused from a dead sleep at zero notice for this emergency meeting too, but their absence is not what’s making the atmosphere in the control room feel hollow and empty right now.

Kun drops a hand onto Mark’s shoulder, so reminiscent of the way Johnny had greeted him that morning that it makes him want to scream, and he looks up to see the man’s soft, steadfast smile directed at him. Kun hasn’t let Mark out of his sight since he arrived, called back to work urgently several hours before his shift is due to start. Mark can’t decide if that fact is comforting or insulting.

“Relax. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Kun whispers, leaning in so that only Mark can hear him beneath the background noise of Ten’s continuing debrief.

Mark glances down at his fingers, knuckles white and strained as he maintains a vice-like grip on the small, spherical object in his hand. He forces his muscles to ease up a little and colour blooms bright across the tops of his fingers, the same deep scarlet as the ball he knows is hidden beneath them. He forces himself to look away, the hazy image of a familiar gun firing in the darkness flashing unbidden across his mind.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to look after it?” Kun knows without asking that Mark won’t let anyone remove the ball from the room. If Mark asks, Kun will protect it with the same doggedness that Mark would, but he doesn’t want to burden his friend with that. Everything is far too fresh in his mind for him to fully process what happened, but Mark knows the burden for all of this rests solely on his shoulders. If anyone can save Johnny now, it’s him.

Mark shakes his head, and Kun nods like he already knew the answer. He squeezes Mark’s shoulder once more, this time in solidarity, and they both tune back into the meeting currently unfolding before them. Ten has finished speaking, ceding the floor to Jungwoo, who looks shaken and pale as he paces the space between Mark’s desk and the door.

“The doctors said that Yuta is going to be fine,” Jungwoo is telling them. Mark breathes a sigh of relief at that. He doesn't understand why Johnny would attack his friend like that, can’t bring himself to believe that his lov—that his partner could be capable of such senseless violence, but he’s grateful that Yuta is okay. “The hospital said that the surgery was a complete success, and he should be able to be back at work by Friday.”

“That’s excellent news.” General Kwon levels a look of genuine concern towards Jungwoo, before glancing cursorily at the other men gathered around her. “Now, our number one priority is the apprehension and safe containment of Captain Suh. I know that Director Kim and I do not fully see eye to eye on this, but I am certain that we can resolve this without further unnecessary bloodshed.”

“Agreed.” The director doesn’t look like he agrees with her, if the thunderous look on his face is anything to go by, but he doesn’t argue. He just looks at each of them in turn, his gaze lingering on Mark for far longer than anyone else, and then waves an arm to end the meeting. “You all have your orders. You’re dismissed.”

The team around Mark immediately starts to disperse, most heading to their respective desks to pick up equipment and supplies to aid them in their search, but Mark doesn’t move for a while. He’s not sure if he can. His fingers flex instinctively around the ball again, the pad of his thumb tracing over the letters he’s read so many times in the past two hours that they’re burned into his retinas. How can he join in on a country-wide manhunt for his former boss—his former partner—when he still has so many unanswered questions.

“Agent Lee?” Mark doesn’t realise he’s been staring absently into space until he hears the director clearing his throat just inches away. Blinking, he realises that the control room is now empty. Even General Kwon is gone, leaving just him and Director Kim.

“Yes, sir?”

“I couldn’t speak freely in front of the general earlier, but I hope you are prepared to do what you have to do.” The director leans in close, so close that Mark’s skin starts to crawl, and then bends down even further so that he’s looking the younger man directly in the eye.

“I—I don’t understand.” That’s not entirely true. He has an inkling of what the man is implying, but it’s utterly unthinkable. He refuses to even consider it as an option. Not now. Not yet. Not until every other avenue has been exhausted, and they’re left with absolutely no other choice.

“Bring him in, Agent Lee.” The director’s voice is strained, but resolute. Not even a trace of hesitation as he stares Mark down. “You’re his partner. He trusts you more than anyone, so you have the best chance of finding him before it’s too late. You have clearance to use lethal force, if necessary. Just stop him, at any cost.”

“But he hasn’t committed a crime, sir.” Mark can’t believe what he’s hearing. He refuses to believe that the director is inciting him to murder. This is Johnny they’re talking about. His mentor, and the finest agent PreCrime has. The evidence against him might be damning right now, and Mark might be struggling to figure out what to believe, but it can’t possibly be this black and white. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

“Not yet.” The man sighs, glancing down at the red ball clutched in Mark’s shaking hands. “But he will.”

“How can you be so sure?” He has to ask, even if he knows the answer. There has to be something—anything—he can do. There has to be another way.

“The Precogs are never wrong, Agent Lee. Many have tried to prove otherwise, and all have failed. It is simply impossible.” The director sighs, offering Mark a sad half-smile. “I don’t want to believe it any more than you do, but he is guilty. You saw it with your own eyes and, if we don’t find him in time, that innocent woman is going to die.” He pauses, allowing Mark a moment to come to the same inevitable conclusion that he has clearly already reached. “Could you live with her murder on your conscience?”

For a long moment, Mark is silent. He knows what he has to say, what he will eventually have to do, but he desperately wants to linger in this wordless limbo for just a fraction of a second longer. Once he bursts this bubble, nothing will ever be the same, and whatever comes next is undoubtedly going to destroy him.

“Agent Lee?”

“No, sir, I couldn’t.” Finality. He can’t take it back. The moment he leaves this room, Johnny ceases to be his partner and friend. He ceases to be the man Mark has slowly been falling in love with. The moment Mark leaves this room, Johnny is nothing more than a perp. A criminal. A future murderer. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

Either way, this will shatter him. If only he had a choice, but he doesn’t.

The Precogs are never wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever for my fics, feel free to leave any and all critique in the comments. Positive or negative, it's all welcome and appreciated.
> 
> And, as always, have a wonderful day!


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